Dynamic partitioning -- the ability to shift processing power to the applications that need it, with no human intervention -- is a crucial function for enterprises with complex and demanding workloads. It allows processors to be taken away from one application and given to another as the workload changes and while the application continues to run.

Unisys , which was not too enthusiastic about its Linux offering last year, is now positioning itself to be an enterprise Linux market leader with the launch of Linux for its ES7000 Intel-based servers.

The ES7000 enterprise server range, also dedicated to Windows , had previously supported SCO Linux until it was withdrawn early last year. Unisys is now reentering the Linux market working with Novell and Red Hat .

The move back to Linux, says Ron Tan, regional director, systems and technology, Unisys Asia South, was driven by several factors, especially demand by enterprise customers for industrial-strength Linux solutions.

According to him, there is a growing interest in open source for high-end machines but there is a lack of alternative solutions. Currently, the high-end market is dominated by certain companies focusing on proprietary Unix implementations.